Posted on 02/10/2022 12:51:44 PM PST by mylife
Back in my 20s, when I was working as a sports reporter, I long-distance dated a guy from Cincinnati.
The first time he said we should “make it a three-way” my eyes bugged out of my head. No, it’s not as dirty as you’re probably thinking. But I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Cincinnati is known for many things. Hosting “Oktoberfest Zinzinnati,” the biggest Octoberfest in the U.S. Its ongoing hatred of Bengals owner Mike Brown And, most importantly, its love for a very particular type of chili.
“Cincinnati-style chili is a big thing,” says Joe O’Brien, a father of three who graduated from Oak Hills High School in Cincinnati in 1994. “People who visit have a binary reaction. You either love it or hate it.”
It’s nothing like Texas chili or any other type of chili. It’s runny. Its Greek-style tomato sauce makes it tangy instead of spicy. It’s made with tiny bits of crumbled-up ground beef boiled in water (or broth) and mixed with an assortment of spices (cumin, cloves, allspice) and tomato paste, among other ingredients, into a sludge-like concoction.
“It almost has a moussaka-like quality to it,” O’Brien says. Others say it looks like diarrhea. (You can read more about the Greek history of Cincinnati-style chili here.)
Some recipes, like the one by Meggan Hill, the executive chef and head of the Culinary Hill Test Kitchen, include apple cider vinegar, chicken broth, brown sugar, and garlic. Regardless of how it’s made, oyster crackers are thrown in to soak up the juices.
“It is so unique,” O’Brien says. “You have to forget the word ‘chili’ because there’s no other style of chili you can compare it to.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thetakeout.com ...
Others say it looks like diarrhea.”
HA. Brought back a memory of a hillbilly country boy I worked with 40 years ago talking about growing multi color Indian corn. “It’s good eat’n but looks like hell coming out”.
the very weirdest thing about cincy chili is they boil the ground beef and it looks like grey worms, but I have learned not to worry about browning, I dont do it in Tx chili either.
anything simmered it makes no matter
I would guess hers had beans :)
Bkmk
How do you get rid of the grease if you cook it all together including the meat?
Why is there cinnamon on it? Get rid of that flavor. Add some spices. Mix it up with rice. Or put it in a soup. Use tortillas. Now that'll work.
you can skim it off when it cools but hell, leave it in mine.
That’s the flavor delivery system.
skim off the scum the hell will grease
Texas Chili typically does not have beans
and is spiced up a bit, and is served
most times on it’s own, or it smothers
a hamburger patty.
I live in NM now and Chili takes on a whole
different meaning. The Chili here refers to
the peppers, and those can be red or green
and be quite hot and spicy.
No beans, but it had the same ingredients as the Cincinnati sauce. I believe the Cincinnati sauce may have English roots.
It’s from Greece, the Greeks brought it over in early 1900’s and set up shop in Cincy.
LOS ANGELES — Cincinnati Bengals tight end C.J. Uzomah will go all-in if the team wins Super Bowl LVI. Specifically, he’ll go all-in ... a tub full of chili.
During Thursday’s virtual media availability, Uzomah said he will soak in Cincinnati-style chili if the Bengals beat the Rams on Sunday to get the first Super Bowl win in franchise history. He said he is serious about putting on some swim trunks and taking a dip in the culinary item that Cincinnati is most associated with.
“You put it in a swimming pool, I’ll dive in there and eat my way out,” Uzomah said.
The idea stemmed from a conversation on an episode of Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take” podcast that will be released Friday. When one of the podcast hosts suggested he was going to take a chili bath, Uzomah said he’d happily join in the action.
“Easy,” Uzomah said. “100%.”
Very cool! I’ve been reading up on how it all started—Greek and Macedonian influence. American traditions with roots from all around the world are fascinating. America truly is a melting pot. I wish we as a nation could get back to that.
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I miss Cincy chili. Technically its a Greek meat sauce rather than Chili. I am a 4 or 5 way person. And you have to have coney’s with the spaghetti plate.
The first place I go when I cross the Ohio river into Cincinnati, is a Skyline or Gold Star.
no beans!!
who dey!!
man I had major hopes for the browns but wtf
Don’t forget the Y’all water tower on the KY side
I think the drive into the valley downtown sits in going north is one of our nations coolest views
At daytime or night
It’s spectacular
All the midwestern states on the Ohio have had southern speech and mores forever
They were more scots Irish and Anglo Saxon than the upstate regions more northern and Eastern European
The boil after Lincoln was elected resulted in strong hesitaion in those areas against thier kin south of the rive. Lincoln had troops garrisoned in those areas for that reason beginning of the hostilities
Even today southern Indiana folks talk fairly similar to KY folk
Unlike say the panhandle of Texas where when you cross in from New Mexico the difference in accent and word choice is marked
As a west-coaster, who knows nothing about real Cincy chili, I just make it by heating a can of Nalley’s chili, putting it over spaghetti (usually angel hair), and topping it with shredded cheese. My kids like it, I like it, and that’s all that matters.
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